Classical music offers countless works that it would be impossible to list them all.

This page presents a few selected aspects, without any claim to completeness, impossible to reach.

Works that are part of world heritage

It is obviously impossible to select one work that is more representative than the others. If certain composers are obviously known to everyone, Bach or Mozart, certain works are known to the public, without the latter identifying the author.

One of the reasons is the reuse of these works in advertisements, in broadcasts on radio or television, and sometimes even in liturgical songs.

The New World Symphony

Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony is undoubtedly one in which several themes are known and used

Carmina Burana

Another popular work is "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. It is composed of 24 songs, including the best known, "O Fortuna" is played twice, at the beginning and at the end of the work.

Originally, the Carmina Burana are a series of 315 religious and secular songs discovered in a manuscript in Germany in 1803, written in medieval Latin. Here, the original interpretation from “O Fortuna”.

Carl Orff selects 24 songs, but only retains the lyrics and composes new music.

The best known of the songs of "Carmina Burana" is of course "O Fortuna".

Here, the full version of the work.

Although Carl Orff composed other pieces, none ever achieved the popularity of Carmina Burana. Carl Orff also wrote to his publisher: "Could you please get rid of everything I have written so far and which was unfortunately published by you? With the Carmina Burana begins the catalog of my works!"

Polovtsian dances of Prince Igor

Under this intriguing title lies a famous work by the Russian composer Alexander Borodin. Polovtsian dances are part of the opera "Prince Igor".

Here, a version with choir of Polovtsian dances. The themes of this work are widely known.

Carnival of the Animals

It would be wrong to believe that this work is intended only for children, even if it is part of a French tradition of musical pastiche, under the guise of an animal description.

Francis Blanche wrote brief texts that could be read by a reciter during performance as a humorous introduction to each part.

The piece entitled The Swan, played on the cello, is the best known.

The aquarium is also famous. This piece can be interpreted in two ways, either like the calm of fish, which corresponds to the theme, or like music evocative of mystery (it was used in the trailer for the film Benjamin Button, the story of a man who is born old and becomes younger, played by Brad Pitt).

Fossils, a piece played on the xylophone, is a parodic passage evoking, in addition to extinct animals, old period tunes and children's nursery rhymes that we can recognize.

The human voice

The human voice is the first instrument. Soloist or choir, human voices are obviously the privileged vectors of musical emotions.

Dies Irae

Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is one of the songs of the requiem, of apocalyptic inspiration, describing the wrath of God on the day of judgment.

This is generally the most powerful song in the requiem. The best known are those of Mozart and Verdi

The Gregorian version is nevertheless peaceful.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's version is the most powerful, but hardly apocalytic.

Giuseppe Verdi's version is full of sound and fury.

Franz von Suppé's version reflects the fear of men, notably through the use of diminished chords.

The version by Karl Jenkins, a contemporary composer, evokes the ride of the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Cold Song

This well-known song is taken from the baroque semi-opera King Arthur. by English composer Henry Purcell.

In this song, the spirit of cold paralyzes the Kingdom, before being countered by Cupid, to whom he asks “What power art thou?”, before recognizing him.

The spirit of cold certainly has a bass voice. Here, a deep bass.

However, the most famous version of this song is performed by countertenors, the most emblematic of them being Klaus Nomi, an extraordinary atypical singer.

Lighter songs

Here are two songs performed by the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

La Danza, by Gioachino Rossini, is a tarantella. For the record, the term tarantella is linked to the city of Taranto and also to the tarantula whose bites this dance was supposed to cure.

Another well-known tune is “Funiculi Funicula”, composed by Luigi Denza in 1880. But who knows that it is an advertising song written to commemorate the inauguration of the Vesuvius funicular which took place a year earlier.

The celesta

Although it externally resembles a piano, the celesta is a musical instrument from the percussion family. The hammers operated by the keyboard strike, not strings, but metal blades.

The resulting sound is of great purity. Celesta is often used for magical, wondrous and celestial effects.

First, a presentation of the celesta and how it works.

The best-known piece using the celesta is the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, taken from the ballet The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

More recently, the Harry Potter film uses celesta in the theme of the owl Edwige.

Karl Jenkins

Sir Karl Jenkins is a contemporary Welsh musician and composer. Early in his career, he was known as a jazz and jazz-rock musician.

He also composes advertising music, the most famous being the classic theme used by diamond dealers De Beers for their television advertising campaign, which will be taken up later in Palladio's work.

Andrea Palladio is a renowned architect of the Italian Renaissance, which still inspires many architects today. Karl Jenkins pays homage to him in this eponymous work, recorded on his 1996 album Diamond Music.

He also founded the Adiemus project, which was first born from an advertisement for the airline Delta Air Lines. The album Adiemus Songs of Sanctuary reached the top of the charts.

The armed man is a mass for peace, dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis. Here, the Sanctus.

Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie, known as Erik Satie, is an unclassifiable French composer and pianist. His works are often given strange titles, Desiccated Embryos, The Three Waltzes distinguished from the precious disgusted. His work Vexations is a repetition of a single motif and its variations, played 840 times in a row without stopping. Its complete execution can thus vary between fourteen and twenty-four hours, or even more, and was described by the Guinness Book of World Records as “the longest piano piece in history”.

This video (in french) presents Erik Satie, trying to understand his personality.

The Gymnopedia (in ancient Greek Γυμνοπαιδία) were religious festivities held in Sparta, during the summer. This is one of Erik Satie's best-known compositions.

Classic, but popular

Today, classical music seems reserved for a small, privileged minority, rarely broadcast during prime time (although with a few exceptions) and sometimes referred to as bourgeois music or music of the rich.

However, some concerts attract a large audience, and some require participation of this audience to the execution of the work.

The example that immediately comes to mind is the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss senior, traditionally performed at the closing of the New Year's Concert given by the Vienna Philharmonic. Traditionally, the audience accompanies the refrain of this march by clapping their hands to mark the rhythm.

A more prominent example is the BBC Proms, a series of classical music concerts and other musical events, mainly at the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington, London. During the last night, the concert, given at the Royal Albert Hall, features various popular classical pieces and closes, in the second part, with a series of British patriotic pieces. Here, for March No. 1 of Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance, the show is both in the public and on stage.